George, as Rick indicated before in the thread, Medarex acquired xenomouse-like technology (they call it HuMouse or something) when they bought GenPharm in 97 or 98. Previous to that, MEDX already had some antibody projects going, including a number of humanized antibodies. These were engineered, presumably, by molecular biology techniques of the kind patented by PDLI, CLL, etc. As these projects are still in clinical development, and, one would think, MEDX would like to seem them in the market some day, they may need licenses to those patents. So yes, it is possible that MEDX has licensed some of this IP to cover a few of their OLD projects.
Now, for the NEW projects at MEDX involving Abs derived from transgenic mice, they will NOT need licenses from the molecular biology companies.
Hope this is clear. What makes things confusing is that while everyone focuses, rightly, on MEDX transgenic mouse technology, it is a fact that most of its antibody pipeline was built *before* the GenPharm merger. Clearly, this pipeline is thus largely made up of molecules engineered using different, older, technology.
One more thing, in previous message I dissed MEDX pipeline. I take that back, partially, by pointing the out the interesting potential of their anti-CTLA4 project. However, I do not think this has started clinical trials yet.
PB |
